Building healthy mussels

Mussel bound
Cyr Couturier and Dr. Jay Parsons from the Centre for Aquaculture
and Seafood Development at the Marine Institute are involved
in the mussel health project.

By
Andris Petersons
SPARK student

First,
they arrive from the growers to the Marine Institute. In the
lab they are presented to a jury and their image judged. They
undergo surgery  dissection. Then they enter the process
of histology  their bodies chemically preserved probably
until the next millennium. Later they find themselves dressed
in wax and cut into very thin sections. Before the meeting with
the microscope they put on some brilliant colours.

They
are mussels.

Cyr
Couturier and Dr. Jay Parsons from the Centre for Aquaculture
and Seafood Development at the Marine Institute are involved
in many projects. One of them is the mussel health project.

The
objectives of the mussel health project are to grow mussels to
market size and to move mussels to other areas. The mussels need
to be healthy in order to avoid spreading disease and to keep
their population stable.

Essentially,
if you are in industry and you want to expand your production,
one of the areas of interest is whether or not your stocks are
healthy or remain healthy, Mr. Couturier explained. This
is one of the reasons why the overall mussel production program
is important both provincially and nationally.

It
is important to recognize potential problems and to find out
the problems before they become major issues. The idea is not
only the health status of the stocks.

One
of our original objectives as university researchers was to provide
some capabilities within the province for shellfish diagnostics
in general, Mr. Couturier said.

Most
of this work, looking at potential diseases and potential parasites,
is done on a microscopic level. Sampling of the overall condition
of the mussel covers 30 farms, 60 animals from each farm, three
pieces of tissue from every animal and one slide per animal with
different parts of the animal on it.

At
the end of the mussel health project, we are hoping that we will
have some idea what is the distribution of potential disease
factors throughout the province  if the particular disease
factor shows up every year or just occasionally and if there
is low or high incidence among stocks of this particular disease
factor, Dr. Parsons said.

Other
objectives have evolved such as the identification and the causes
of stress proteins in mussels. Research has revealed that stress
proteins in mussels may indicate potential diseases.

Mr.
Couturier, Dr. Parsons and other researchers started the mussel
production program in 1997 and plan to complete it by early 2000.
Apart from the mussel health project, the program also includes
environmental monitoring, mussel seed genetics, extension and
technology development, field and physiological evaluation of
production capacity and seed supply.

The
mussel production program in general involves a whole network
of collaboration. MUNs contribution to the program is researchers,
research assistants, technical people, four M.Sc. graduate students
in aquaculture and four advanced diploma students. Some of the
objectives of the mussel production program are similar to those
of NSERC projects of other researchers and collaboration with
NSERC researchers is undertaken within the program.

It
also involves many institutions such as the Canadian Department
of Fisheries and Oceans and the National Research Council. The
mussel production program is supported by the Canada/Newfoundland
Economic Renewal Agreement, the Canadian Centre for Fisheries
Innovation, the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association
and Memorial University.